I am out of trial and error again Lists

[Seymore4Head]

On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 08:20:32 +0100, Mark Lawrence
<breamoreboy at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>On 23/10/2014 02:57, Seymore4Head wrote:
>> On Wed, 22 Oct 2014 21:35:19 -0400, Seymore4Head
>> <Seymore4Head at Hotmail.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 02:31:57 +0100, MRAB <python at mrabarnett.plus.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2014-10-23 01:10, Seymore4Head wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 11:05:08 +1100, Steven D'Aprano
>>>>> <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Seymore4Head wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Those string errors were desperate attempts to fix the "append" error
>>>>>>> I didn't understand.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ah, the good ol' "make random changes to the code until the error goes away"
>>>>>> technique. You know that it never works, right?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Start by *reading the error message*, assuming you're getting an error
>>>>>> message. I'm the first person to admit that Python's error messages are not
>>>>>> always as clear as they should be, especially syntax errors, but still
>>>>>> there is a lot of information that can be gleamed from most error messages.
>>>>>> Take this attempt to use append:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> py> mylist.append(23)
>>>>>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>>>>>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>>>>>> NameError: name 'mylist' is not defined
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That tells me that I have forgotten to define a variable mylist. So I fix
>>>>>> that:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> py> mylist = 23
>>>>>> py> mylist.append(23)
>>>>>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>>>>>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>>>>>> AttributeError: 'int' object has no attribute 'append'
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That tells me that I can't append to a int. After googling for "Python
>>>>>> append" I learn that I can append to a list, so I try again:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> py> mylist = []
>>>>>> py> mylist.append(23)
>>>>>> py> print(mylist)
>>>>>> [23]
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Success!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you are familiar with other programming languages, it might help to think
>>>>>> of append() as being like a procedure in Pascal, for example. You call
>>>>>> append() with an argument, but don't expect a return result.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Technically, *all* functions and methods in Python return something, even if
>>>>>> just the special value None, which can lead to "Gotchas!" like this one:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> py> mylist = mylist.append(42)  # Don't do this!
>>>>>> py> print(mylist)  # I expect [23, 42] but get None instead.
>>>>>> None
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Oops. One of the small annoyances of Python is that there is no way to tell
>>>>>> ahead of time, except by reading the documentation, whether something is a
>>>>>> proper function that returns a useful value, or a procedure-like function
>>>>>> that returns None. That's just something you have to learn.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The interactive interpreter is your friend. Learn to experiment at the
>>>>>> interactive interpreter -- you do know how to do that, don't you? If not,
>>>>>> ask. At the interactive interpreter, if a function or method returns a
>>>>>> value, it will be printed, *except for None*. So a function that doesn't
>>>>>> print anything might be procedure-like, and one which does print something
>>>>>> might not be:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> py> mylist = [1, 5, 2, 6, 4, 3]
>>>>>> py> sorted(mylist)  # proper function returns a value
>>>>>> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>>>>>> py> mylist.sort()  # procedure-like function returns None
>>>>>> py> print(mylist)  # and modifies the list in place
>>>>>> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>>>>>
>>>>> I am going to get around to learning the interpreter soon.
>>>>>
>>>> Why wait?
>>>>
>>>> You're trying to learn the language _now_, and checking things
>>>> interactively will help you.
>>>
>>> Because most of the practice I am getting is not using Python.  I use
>>> Codeskulptor.
>>>
>>> OK.........Now is as good a time as ever.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>
>> Now I remember why...........nothing happens
>> http://i.imgur.com/MIRpqzY.jpg
>>
>> If I click on the shell window, I can get the grayed options to show
>> up for one turn.
>> I hit step and everything goes gray again.
>>
>> http://i.imgur.com/NtMdmU1.jpg
>>
>> Not a very fruitful exercise.  :(
>>
>
>If you were to read and digest what is written it would help.  You're 
>trying to run IDLE.  We're talking the interactive interpreter.  If (at 
>least on Windows) you run a command prompt and then type python<cr> you 
>should see something like this.
>
>Python 3.4.2 (v3.4.2:ab2c023a9432, Oct  6 2014, 22:16:31) [MSC v.1600 64 
>bit (AMD64)] on win32
>Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

OK
Thanks